Jon Dunbar is a copy editor at The Korea Times, as well as editor of the Foreign Community page and curator of the Korea Times Archive. If you have suggestions for possible articles, or wish to contribute articles yourself, contact jdunbar@koreatimes.co.kr.
USFK veteran's latest novel tackles military sex crimes
The cover of "War Women" by Martin Limon / Courtesy of Soho Press
By Jon Dunbar
By Jon Dunbar
After a year off due to COVID-19 delays, the fictional CID agents George Sueno and Ernie Bascom are finally back in action, patrolling 1970s-era Itaewon and locations across Korea. This time, while trying to help out friends, they run up against North Korean agents while also finding themselves caught in a gender war within U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) ranks.
“War Women” is
15th book in the Sueno and Bascom series, based loosely on his own memories and impressions serving in Korea from the 1960s to 1980s.
“None of my stories are based on real-life incidents. I think it's fair to say that they are inspired by numerous real-life incidents that I either experienced directly or was told about or read about during my 20 years in the army, and my five tours in the ROK. Then I add a huge dollop of imagination and, I hope, story-telling acumen,” Limon told The Korea Times.
“I visited many if not most of the 50-some military compounds in Korea during my years there. I even went to some on my own, in civilian clothes, during my off-duty time, out of curiosity to see what they were like. Often the local GIs would become suspicious and start whispering about the CID. Frankly that was the genesis of the idea that later became the George Sueno and Ernie Bascom series. You'll notice that my two investigators constantly face suspicion and even hostility from local soldiers. GIs are very territorial, often irrationally so.”
Martin Limon / Courtesy of Martin Limon
This story gets going with the two detectives investigating the disappearance of Sergeant First Class Harvey, their source in the classified documents vault on Yongsan Garrison, nicknamed “Strange” due to his always unwelcomed catchphrase, “Had any strange lately?” While scouring Itaewon for the vanished NCO and the classified document he disappeared with, they must also bail out their reporter friend Katie Byrd Worthington from Korean jail, after she is caught photographing a U.S. general enjoying himself a little too much at a private party. Byrd, introduced in the preceding book “GI Confidential,” works for The Overseas Observer, nicknamed “The Oversexed Observer” and based on the real Overseas Weekly that ran from 1966 to 1975. When the characters go out into the field for the Focus Lens war exercises, the two plotlines start coming together, and the stakes get higher.
Even though the story is set in the mid-1970s, “probably in mid-1975” according to the author, many of the key plot points brought up still feel fresh today, particularly the addressing of military sex crimes. After a handful of high-profile suicide deaths reported earlier this year resulting from mishandling of sex crimes in Korea's own armed forces, it's hard to believe “War Women” depicts a similar incident completely by coincidence, but yet the timing of publication leaves little doubt Limon planned it that way, since he finished the book last year.
“Frankly, after I finished War Women I wondered if I'd overdone the sexual abuse aspects of the story,” Limon said. “While I was pondering this, news broke regarding a young female soldier named Vanessa Guillen.”
Guillen went missing last year from her duty station at Fort Hood, Texas, but she was declared absent without leave (AWOL) until her dismembered remains were discovered.
“Despite the fact that she'd complained about sexual harassment, nothing had been done about it ― which surprised me not one whit,” Limon said. “As the cops were coming to arrest him, the soldier responsible shot himself through the head. Unfortunately, there are more like him in the military, which is what War Women is about.”
When Sueno and Bascom first encounter the War Women of the novel's title, they are at first confused and a little angered by the women's hostility toward them. But as they learn about the treatment the women endure, especially while out in the field for Focus Lens, they all but side with the female soldiers gone rogue.
Another element that features heavily is Focus Lens, which in those days saw the USFK and Korean armed forces out in the field, practicing maneuvers such as river crossings and beach landings. Highlighted is how much North Korea's leader hated these exercises, and in this book he decides to do something about it. These days, such combat drills are heavily scaled back so as to not provoke North Korea, with even the previous U.S. President Donald Trump calling them “war games” that were too “expensive” and “provocative” toward the North, which has been accusing the drills of being a rehearsal to an invasion.
“I was startled and frankly pissed off that former President Trump used the North Korean propaganda buzzword ― provocative ― to describe our joint military exercises,” said Limon, who participated in the exercises himself in the mid-1970s. “I can tell you that the first thing we did, rather than provoke, was to retreat. We hooked up each of our howitzers to a two-and-a-half ton truck and moved out smartly ― heading south. When we arrived at the Imjin River we boarded motorized pontoons, launched into the fast moving current, and when we hit the far bank, about a half-mile downstream, we offloaded and continued our retreat. The idea was to clear the area near the DMZ so B52s from Okinawa and Guam would have plenty of room to attack the numerous tank brigades that the North Koreans kept poised and ready just north of their side of the DMZ. Our practice was defensive. Not offensive. And it certainly wasn't provocative… North Korea was delighted that Donald put a stop to those exercises. He fell for their lies.”
Interestingly, Limon describes Kim Il-sung, the North's leader in the days of Sueno Bascom, as having long tentacles. Meanwhile, the North's agents in the story seem to hang out at seafood restaurants specializing in nakji, or freshly sliced up tentacles still wriggling, so the main characters visit the seafood market in Noryangjin hoping to spot their suspects.
“I hadn't thought of the use of nakji as a literary device,” Limon admitted. “I ate it once, soaked in some sort of hot red pepper sauce, and didn't like it much. That and squid and cuttlefish are seen as gross by most American GIs. So I thought it would be sort of humorous to have an old curmudgeon like Strange being persuaded to enter a Korean seafood restaurant specializing in nakji and ojingeo.”
“War Women” is due for publishing by Soho Press on Nov. 16 and is currently available for pre-sales through
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